


Listen Closely

by glennjaminhow



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, This is not a happy birthday, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-22 23:53:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16607837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glennjaminhow/pseuds/glennjaminhow
Summary: Filled Tumblr Prompt for @shawnnhunter: Dennis + Spending his birthday alone in North Dakota.





	Listen Closely

**Author's Note:**

> This is sad. Also, the poem at the end belongs to me, so it is sad too, but it is also garbage.

“’appy birthday!” Brian Junior, or not exactly ever Junior, screeches, voice shrill as he holds out his arms and clenches his fingers to his palms over and over again.

His arms are as wide as his two year old body will allow, which, granted, isn’t very wide. They certainly aren’t wide enough, able enough, to grab ahold of his God Hole and hoist it from his stomach to his brain where things make more sense. He’s drowning in a world riddled with fear and unspoken anxiety, a world that’s cost him his Golden God life. He’s spent six fucking months in fucking North Dakota of all Goddamn places, where everyday is a Hell based on an episode of Fargo just on the premise of dialogue alone.

Dennis picks up his son. “Thanks, buddy,” he says quietly, flatly, as he plants a quick kiss on the toddler’s sticky cheek and sets him back down on the ground stable enough to hold them both, even though the shaking of his legs and the ringing – no, blaring – in his ears suggests otherwise. Brian’s bare feet pitter patter until they’re gone, ghosts in a house still vastly foreign to him.

“Any big plans for tonight?” Mandy asks. Her hair’s a bird nest of undeterred selflessness and lack of sleep. Her olive green cardigan is misbuttoned, and noticing it, seeing that it’s not a figment of his fucked up imagination, makes Dennis’ heart slam right into his throat. He tries to breathe. Just breathe. But he can feel himself losing grip on a reality that threatens to swallow him whole daily. It makes him angry. He bites his lower lip so hard it bleeds into his mouth.

He nods and plasters on a fake smile. "A couple of guys from work are taking me out for drinks."

By that, he means falling asleep on his ratty futon before 8:00 PM, but only after giving himself alcohol poisoning, of course.

He works overnights at a department store. 7:00 PM to 3:00 AM, the shift of Gods. He doesn’t talk to his co-workers, and they don’t talk to him; he appreciates the mutuality because he didn’t even have to sneer at their gap teeth or ridiculous accents first. People leave him alone. He radiates a sense of higher purpose. He’s better than this anyway, even if it is his life now.

But Mandy doesn’t need to know that, though. She’s under the impression that Dennis integrated himself well into a brand new society, minus a few hiccups along the way. There was the time, only a couple weeks ago actually, where he showed up plastered out of his mind to watch Brian and pushed him – his son – to the floor when the kid just wanted a hug. He was having a bad day, or at least that’s how Mac excuses his psychotic behavior. But Dennis is either stagnant or volatile, here or floating in space, and that day was shit from the start for no reason at all.

There is never a reason with him. Everything and nothing sets him off.

At this point, there is no logical reason to tell Mandy about the diagnosis he received two years prior – borderline personality disorder – or the shit he deals with as a result. He doesn’t want her to just seem him as this guy – the father of her child – with a mental illness that she has to depend on to take care of their kid, so he doesn’t let her. Stopped taking his meds a week after he got here because it was all too much, and he couldn’t hide the pill bottles, and he just wanted to make it stop. Mac would murder him if he were here for quitting something that helped him cold turkey, especially without talking to a doctor first, but Mac isn’t here.

Mac isn’t here.

“Good. That’s good,” Mandy says, and he can tell she means it; Mandy’s nice like that. “Well, I hope you have fun.”

Dennis nods again. He says bye to Brian and waves at Mandy, face falling into a blank stare as soon as he turns away from them. He gets into his shitty rental car and drives to his shitty rental studio apartment, where there is only a shitty full-sized bed, a shitty futon, a shitty TV, and a shitty mini fridge. He guesses he doesn’t need anything else. Just a place to crash and alcohol to drink. He kicks off his shoes, lights a cigarette, and collapses on what may as well be cardboard.

He doesn’t turn on the lights. He doesn’t click on the TV. He doesn't even pop open a cold one to sip on. Instead, he sits there, staring off into blackness with the cigarette dangling from his lips. It’s the only light in the room. Sometimes, if he listens closely enough, he can hear Dee squawking like a bird. He can hear Frank spitting out pistachios. He can hear Charlie scream about bashing rats. He can hear Mac laughing and whispering and coaxing and comforting and pleading and worrying.

But there’s no need to worry because Dennis is fine. He is fine. This life is fine.

So he listens to nothing for a while, lets himself melt into the futon and soak in Mac’s voice. On his birthday, Mac lets him call the shots, kind of like Dennis Day, only it’s just Mac and Dennis instead of the whole gang. On previous birthdays, they’ve partied and gotten hammered. They’ve stayed in bed with plenty of movies and popcorn. They’ve scammed an aquarium, adopted a goat they named Bahhh, eaten candlelit dinners in the moonlight, fucked until the sun came up.

Last year, they didn’t do anything for Dennis’ birthday. He was in Philly, but the world just wasn’t clicking right with him. He’d try to talk, but his brain wouldn’t let him. He was so numb and desperate to feel that he slashed up his thigh with a kitchen knife like he was writing with a ballpoint pen, writing his pathetic story from A to Z until Mac snapped him out of it. Mac is everything and nothing and too much all at once. He couldn’t touch Dennis without Dennis snapping, and boy did he snap hard. Mac’s fingers were cold and felt like hers, and he just wanted it all to be over, for his body to set aflame, for the moon to crash into the earth.

Mac stayed with him until he fell asleep. Mac whispered ‘happy birthday’ to a man who didn’t even want to be alive.

He’s had great birthdays, but those were in the past.

A tear streams down his cheek. He doesn’t bother wiping it away. If he doesn’t cry for himself, then who will?

Dennis sniffles, pulling his phone from his pocket and unlocking it. He scrolls through the highlights – weather, makeup, fashion trends, news still set for Philly instead of North Dakota – and tries to refocus. He needs to re-center. He needs to rein it in and take control of the situation before tears through his walls. He stubs out his cigarette on his jeans, – doesn’t feel it – letting the butt fall to the floor, hoping media will make his breathing not be so shallow.

But then his phone vibrates. It’s a text message from Mac.

**Today, 7:34 PM**

_happy birthday dude. hope its a good one. i miss u_

Dennis stares at the message. Lets it fill him up, feeding his stomach and cleansing his skin. Tears prick his eyes. His hands shake. He chokes back a sob.

He throws the phone at the wall. Hears the screen shatter.

Stands up. Bathroom. Razor. Cuts. Doesn’t make sense doesn’t want it wants life to be over life is meaningless and random and nothing he can’t handle it anymore. Guts himself like a pumpkin. Pumpkins don’t have to worry about shit, and he’s constantly worrying about shit, and he can’t do it by himself. He can’t do anything by himself. He needs control, craves it, wants so badly to be in his own body again, but he isn’t and never will be and isn’t sure he ever even was.

Blood pools in the bathtub. Dennis’ butchered arms grow numb. He doesn’t feel pain. He doesn’t feel anger. He doesn’t feel anything. Anything at all.

He stares off into the blackness with a razor dangling from cold fingers.

Sometimes, if he listens closely enough, he can hear Mac laughing.

 _He is rubble._  
_He is ash._  
_He is those who never made it home._  
_Failure stabs into his muscles deeply,_  
_Straight down to the bone._  
_No profound thoughts in ages._  
_Screams turn into sobs locked in cages._  
_Bleeds until the world makes sense again._  
_Not gone but here,_  
_Where golden orange skies_  
_And rust-coated tombs,_  
_Uproot his life like plucking a flower,_  
_Hand-picking it for a loved one,_  
_Destroying roots,_  
_Eliminating chances at life._  
_Breathes in stale, cold air and stares_  
_At the skin marred with self-inflicted scars._  
_There may be blood spilling over his dying flesh,_  
_From the arm he gutted like a pumpkin,_  
_But no one notices,_  
_And that’s okay._  
_He’s just a warm bundle of logs,_  
_Roasting in an open fire._  
_Outside, trees sway in the chilly breeze,_  
_Calling him home from the world that he flees._  
_He is debris._  
_He is wreckage._  
_He is those who never saw daylight._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to follow me or send in a request on Tumblr: @glennjaminhow.


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